A gas turbine system generally includes a compressor section, a combustion section, a turbine section, and an exhaust section. The compressor section progressively increases the pressure of a working fluid entering the gas turbine system and supplies this compressed working fluid to the combustion section. The compressed working fluid and a fuel (e.g., natural gas) mix within the combustion section and burn in a combustion chamber to generate high pressure and high temperature combustion gases. The combustion gases flow from the combustion section into the turbine section where they expand to produce work. For example, expansion of the combustion gases in the turbine section may rotate a rotor shaft connected, e.g., to a generator to produce electricity. The combustion gases then exit the gas turbine via the exhaust section.
The turbine section includes a plurality of rotor blades, which extract kinetic energy and/or thermal energy from the combustion gases flowing therethrough. These rotor blades generally operate in extremely high temperature environments. In order to achieve adequate service life, the rotor blades typically include an internal cooling circuit. During operation of the gas turbine, a cooling medium such as compressed air is routed through the internal cooling circuit to cool the rotor blade.
In some configurations, the cooling medium flows through a plurality of trailing edge passages extending through a trailing edge of the rotor blade. The cooling medium flowing through the plurality of trailing edge passages absorb heat from the portions of the airfoil proximate to the trailing edge, thereby cooling the trailing edge. Nevertheless, conventional trailing edge passage arrangements may not cool the portions of the airfoil trailing edge positioned radially inwardly from the plurality of the trailing edge cooling apertures.